Everyone had that one buddy in junior high who just couldn't bring himself to go along with the status quo. While you and your friends were free-styling the latest Fresh Prince album, he was alone in his room jamming to the Dead Milkmen. While you were watching 90210, he was taping Mystery Science Theater. And while you were working on your jump shot or mastering the finer points of the curve ball, he was eschewing the "traditional" sports in favor of skateboarding and ultimate frisbee.
Well, I've got news for you. Shortly after college, that guy decided to give rugby a go. And finally, he was free. For all his life, that guy had been looking for all the things that make rugby unique: the free-flowing, unstructured play, the unbridled violence, the excessive drinking, the until-we-die comraderie, and oh...did I mention the excessive drinking?
This weekend brought Ruggerfest 39 to Aspen, and with it, roughly 200 of these uncoventional, anti-institutional sorts. To give you an idea of just what kind of guy is still playing competitive rugby well into his 30's, here are just three of the many great stories I heard this weekend while enjoying a couple of pints.
3. On Saturday night, I met Mike, from Kansas City. He was drinking a Jack-and-Coke, and though it was only 9 o'clock, he had that glazed over look that usually means you've had one-too-many. Being a rugger, I assumed that was the case. That is, until he reached out to shake my hand and I noticed a hospital bracelet around his wrist. Turns out, earlier that day he had suffered his 14th concussion, and the vision still hadn't fully retuned to his left eye. He had spent the better part of the day in the hospital, and when they wouldn't give him any Vicodin for the pain, he figured whiskey was the next best thing.
2. On Friday, I met up with Mike McCarron, a buddy of mine who plays for the Denver Barbarians, one of the elite amateur rugby sides in the country. While having the obligatory "How's life in Aspen?" conversation, I was lamenting the fact that neither Lauren nor I had seen any cool wildlife since we arrived. It was at that point that Mike recounted the time, in 2003, when he walked out of the the bar at last call to find the entire Air Force Academy Rugby team, sufficently soused, circled around some helpless victim, yelling insults and threats of imminent violence. Normally, this wouldn't be unique, as the mob-mentality runs rampant in the sport.
Only as Mike got closer to the circle, he realized that in its middle was not some unfortunate local quivering in his goose-down North Face jacket, but rather a fully grown, adult Black bear. Sadly, Mike didn't stick around to find out how the confrontation ended.
1. This picture pretty much captures the spirit of Ruggerfest: twenty grown men dressed as nuns getting hammered off a drink they invented earlier that night, a whiskey-coke-whipped cream concoction known only as the "Hamnose." Apparently, during the formal dinner provided by the Rugby association earlier that night, one member of the team had become unruly and started chucking cabbage about with reckless abandon. Finally, someone stood up to the bully, and whipped a piece of ham across the table, smacking the instigator square in the schnozz and sticking there, adding insult to injury.
Infuriated, the instigator demanded a drink as restitution. Instead he got the "Hamnose:" three parts whiskey, one part Coke, and then a pile of whipped cream on top, purely for asthetics. Good times.
